Taking your Pinterest, Etsy, and Instructable ideas and giving you the low down on the cost, the time, and the skills it takes to make these at home!

Thursday, July 3, 2014

DIY Red, White, and Blue Yarn Wreath

While perusing the interwebs to try and find something easy, AND cheap, AND patriotic to put on my front door for the upcoming 4th of July, I came across this Etsy listing. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you can spend $30 on a wreath OR... you can make it yourself and spend a heckuva lot less. My stars were made of paper, not wood, however paper is a lot more accessible for folks than wooden stars AND you can have them be any size you want! The best part? You can remove all of this for the next holiday wreath instead of having to buy another!

So here's what you'll need to make your own Independence Day wreath:

* Red, white, and blue yarn (you can either buy skeins at your craft store or do what I did and find a cheap sweater at Goodwill and pull it apart!)
* A wreath (mine was made of styrofoam but you could make one out of cardboard -- it's going to be covered up anyway!)
* Scissors
* Tape or hot glue (I used tape because I want to reuse this wreath for other holidays)
* White card stock paper

Start by taping or gluing your yarn to the back of the wreath. Then, just wrap it around and around and around and...

Once you've wrapped about 2" worth, glue or tape it down and do the same thing to the next color - tape or glue it to the back and wrap around and around and around. The thicker the yarn, the faster and easier it will be. Thin yarn works too but you spend more time wrapping.

I decided to do the 13 red and white stripes, like the flag, and yes, the red stripe is on top (I'm a little picky when it comes to details!)

Next, the yarn from the Goodwill sweater. Here's a tip: go with a sweater that was handknit, not one that was made by a machine. It's a lot harder to pull a string from a machine-made sweater because the stitches are so tight. I ended up pulling multiple strings and tying them all together which, to be honest, I kinda liked. Gave it a more rustic look.

Once your red, white, and blue yarn is on the wreath, it's time to make the stars. Cut out however many you want and secure them with either glue or tape (I thought about doing 50 but since I'm taping them, I figured they'd blow away if they were that small).

Hang on your door with yarn (if you don't have a hook) and voila! Now while it might take longer to make this vs. spending 5 minutes buying one in the store or online, it's homemade, it's unique, and gosh darn it, makin' something with your two hands is just plain 'Murican!

TOTAL COSTS: Depends on materials

$6.99 for wreath from Michael's (but as I said, you could use cut out cardboard)

$3 for sweater from Goodwill

$6.99/skein of yarn from Michael's (there's cheaper yarn online but you have to pay for shipping)

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 6 hours

Keep in mind, I had to untangle all my white yarn, pull out all of my blue yarn from the sweater, then tie all the ends together... needless to say, this will go a lot faster for you if you a.) buy thick skeins of yarn (like the red stripes only took 3 minutes each to wrap!) or b.) if you want to rip apart a sweater, use a handmade sweater, not one made by a machine.

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5

After a while, my left hand started to cramp when I was wrapping the thin white yarn but that was after doing it for a few hours straight. Other than that, it's a very easy project to do and one that would be a great time-suck for your kids (if they're into crafts).